A Lifetime Event

My Dad's 90th birthday was February 20, 2013. We celebrated his birthday and his life on Saturday, February 16. He is surrounded here by many of his grandchildren and also great-grandchildren. 

 This photo shows us five kids with Dad.

 Chris, Linda, Rand, Marcie, Joel

Chris brought Dad a trophy for sports, family,  

and service to church and country.

 Here is my family with Dad.

Marcie, Mike and Renn

Jennie, Dad and Polly 

 This is a five generation shot!

Me in the back and in front is Becky, Dad, 

Polly and Becky's twins, Grey and Micah.

My brother Chris also came up with this Lifetime Achievement Award! What a great idea!

The party was a huge success, and in great part because of the generosity of my darling cousins who all brought wonderful food for everyone, and my cousin Brenda who volunteered the use of her backyard, which is fabulous!

Anna Marie came up with a darling skit idea and all the kids participated in quick little dances to mark the generations that my Dad has been around. They did the Charleston, the Twist and even a little Rap!

The kids are performing "Splish, Splash, I was Taking a Bath"

The guys doing "YMCA"

"Surfing USA"

All my cousins but two were there! Has that ever happened before?



Jonathan Call made this great video of old photos from Dad's life. 
Enjoy!

Just for fun...

Kathryn at Glacier

This video is from a year or so ago, and I meant to post it then but couldn't figure it out. It is so cute of our Kathryn acting as tour guide!

This video and it is great! I hope this loads so you can all enjoy it. She is a riot! I see a career path for her. (Don't mind the beginning where it is sideways).

Quick trip to Minnesota

Mike and I took a quick trip to Minnesota in July. We drove. We drove two full days until midnight.  We actually planned to spend a night in Wisconsin, but every hotel was full, so we kept going. This would have been a great trip to go on with a fellow quilter. You would not believe how many signs I saw on the highway for quilt shops! We also saw many signs for what they loosely refer to as "gentlemen clubs", an obvious misnomer. I lead a very sheltered life. I had no idea.

As we sped across Virginia, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota we saw highly forested rolling hills and we crossed large rivers.  We saw picturesque farms and huge fields of corn. The whole time we kept discussing the early adventurers and pioneers in this great nation of ours and how remarkable they were. I guess I can't go anywhere without feeling an affinity for the history. One of my favorite books ever is called From Sea to Shining Sea by James Alexander Thom. He begins with the Clark family in Virginia and all the sons they raised and what they did with their lives. They were a remarkable family, their youngest son being William Clark, the co-leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. What a big beautiful country we live in!

At long last we arrived in Brainerd, MN where we stayed at  Bigelow's lake home on Sylvan Lake. We loved being with Kati and Emma and Marnie and Tim. They are terrific! They all mentioned how nice it was to have Matt stay there with them a couple of years ago. 
It was so good to be back in the land of sky blue waters where we fell asleep each night to the sound of loons and lapping water. I suppose every part of the country has its own sounds that tell you you are home, and in Minnesota it is the haunting sound of the loons calling across the water to one another on a still night. It is like comfort food for the soul. And speaking of comfort food, I wanted to make sure we got brats and walleye. Success! I love walleye. A funny name for delicious fish!

We spent time with Gene and Jude, and that was very nice. Grampa is not doing so well. Parkinson's is taking its tole. He is still sharp as can be, he just has a difficult time expressing himself and getting around.

We spent one night with my Dad and brother Joel. We stayed at Joel's house. We also went over to the cemetery where Mom and Logan are buried. It is such a lovely location with the sun shining and the shade trees.
We didn't get to see Rand, so we decided to leave and begin our journey home. Quick trip, but it was great to be there for a while!

May in AZ

I have spent the past three weeks staying at my Dad's apartment. I was worried that it would be difficult, but it has been very nice, actually. I have enjoyed being with Dad and visiting and watching TV together. He is amazing.


I have had a car loaned to me either by my sister or Aunt Kathy, so I have been able to get around. I am spending a lot of time at Home Depot, it seems. I was out with Linda the other day and bought a bed! After stressing about getting one home from Costco, I went into a mattress store and they showed me their selection and delivered it and set it up the next day. So I spent my first night in my house in AZ last night. I had to take a melatonin to get to sleep because I was antsy. I never got the blind installed in my bedroom so I dragged a big heavy mirrored closet door in from the garage to put up against the widow. Perfect! They still need to be installed on the closet, but I really hate them. It is good to have a mirror tho. I dragged out two more to cover the kitchen widows. My idea of window treatments! Ha! I really want wooden shutters, but blast the price!

I planted a few flowers in the front, but don't yet know what will survive here. Everyone seems to be pulling their geraniums and petunias that were out all "winter". I put in one honeysuckle bush that is supposed to grow and trail, and I think it will do fine as long as it gets water. The drip system is supposedly fixed now, only the guy won't speak to me in English, even tho I know he can. He is one of a two man team and Javier always does the talking. I asked Javier if he turned the bag of Amend into the soil and he assured me that he did, but he did not. I think he has some English issues as well. Everyone here has Mexicans that work for them and the ones that have worked for me are hard workers. My friend Harold speaks fluently to them. He is from a huge polygamist family that moved to Mexico in the late 1800's when the LDS church stopped practicing. It is a fascinating history to me. My brother-in-law is descended from the same families. I bet there are thousands of them. A few families went to Mexico in the beginning and they all intermarried and most of them have immigrated back to the states and are not practicing polygamy. Mitt Romney is one of their descendants as well. 

I have my sewing machine set up in the kitchen area and am trying to get some stuff done. There are always plenty of projects to finish! And even more that I want to make. Last night I sewed until 9:30 or 10:00 while watching a TV show on my laptop computer.

 

Becky and family are in San Diego. Travis had filming to do there so they all drove along.   The twins are endearing themselves to everyone along the way. They spend the night at Uncle Chris's house in Las Vegas along the way and are now staying at Grimshaw's in SD. Carl and Kathy in the above photo with maybe Grey. Micah and Becky below.

Jesse and Tucker and Micah and Grey! So cute!

Miss you Matt

Welcome to Virginia Beach

 Chris - Tatum - Gina - Ethan

We had the pleasure of having the Winspears come to visit us! We were really excited for my brother Chris and his family to come and visit us for the first time since living here. They spent a few very busy days in Washington, D.C. and then drove to our house. We encouraged them to relax and enjoy the beach, and they did! They also went to Busch Gardens and Historic Williamsburg. The weather was great while they were here (if you call hot and humid "great"). 

 

 These kids are so adorable! We really enjoyed them!

 We went to eat at Surfrider by the water and Ethan didn't know what to do without his I-Pod, so he worked on making Baba Lou's famous lemonade: Squeeze the juice from the lemon into your water and add sweetner! Of course then he had to pick out the seeds to blow from his straw. Uncle Mike may have contributed some instructions for this.

Tatum, the perfect child at all times, simple rolled her eyes at her brother's antics. 


What a nice week we had here at the beach! 


Love to all, MOM